Anthropology, History, Linguistics, and Politics brewed together into one heady concoction.

Thursday, June 1, 2017

Stupid Planet. Who Needs It?

Screw the Paris Agreement!

Or so says Donald Trump by backing out of the international effort to protect the global community from catastrophic climate change. Just before he rejected this agreement, two members of his administration pointedly dismissed the idea that there is such a thing as a global community. Let's be real now: to deny that we are part of an international community, albeit an
occasionally contentious one, is absolutely loony. However, I am willing to grant that
Donald Trump, with his astonishingly shallow and narrow grasp of history, may honestly not understand this fact.

The latest evidence for his failure to grasp the reality of
the global community is revealed in an op-ed piece in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal by National Security
Advisor H. R. McMaster and Economic Advisor Gary D. Cohn. Here are some
excerpts:

“The president embarked on his first foreign trip
with a clear-eyed outlook that the world is not a ‘global community’ but an
arena where nations, nongovernmental actors and businesses engage and compete
for advantage.”

Furthermore:

“We bring to this forum unmatched military,
political, economic, cultural and moral strength. Rather than deny this
elemental nature of international affairs, we embrace it.”

Ironically, this article, in which the authors
portray America as an ass-kicking cage fighter, is titled “America First Doesn’t
Mean America Alone.”

Some observers have accused Trump’s team members
of competing against each other to get the “employee of the month award” from
their boss, and perhaps this explains how two intelligent men could produce
such childish drivel. For sure, Trump will approve of these words if he reads
them. The image of America swaggering
about in an arena, dominating all others with its matchless prowess, has got to
warm the Donald’s heart, or whatever he has where normal people nurture a heart.
So, brownie points for McMaster and Cohn.

But, like so much that comes out of the Trump
White House, it’s nonsense. Just to focus on one questionable point, America’s “moral
strength” is anything but unmatched these days. The very fact that we have allowed
into the Oval Office a man whose behavior includes outright fraud (Trump
University), anti-Muslim and anti-Mexican bigotry, admitted acts of sexual assault,
pathological lying, mocking of people with disabilities, and of military heroes,
etc., etc., naturally throws our nation’s moral standing into question. I may
be called unpatriotic for suggesting this, but if there were an international
survey in which respondents were asked to rank the leaders of the following countries
in terms of their moral standing…

Canada

Germany

Sweden

Switzerland

U.S.A.

…I don’t believe we would come out on top.

Same goes for our “political” and “cultural” strength.
The election of Donald Trump, which sent shock waves throughout much of the
world (not Moscow), has actually given Jeffersonian democracy a serious black
eye.

This leaves America’s military and economic strength,
and on these fronts, I believe we are still unmatched. These may, in fact, be
the only fronts that the Bullshitter in Chief genuinely cares about.

But why would Trump want to follow up his rude and
pushy European visit with an editorial that emphasizes his contempt for the
world community? Either he wants to make sure our (former) allies understand he
regards them as adversaries or he’s struggling to pretend he did all that
political damage on purpose - for his own secret, covfefe* reasons maybe? Or perhaps
he simply believes that this message is the perfect concoction for getting his base to continue loving
him.

Honestly, I’d like to ask McMaster and Cohn why
they don’t believe there is a global community. Have they never heard of the
United Nations? Are they not aware that all 190-plus of the world’s nations are
linked together through an intricate web of international treaties? Do they not
understand that rising ocean levels and increasingly brutal storm systems
affect us all? Have they forgotten that there is, after all, only One World
and, that we Earthlings, as its only caretakers, are obligated to work together
to maintain it?

Or what?

March for Science, March 22, 2017

* Culture World’s crack team of
cryptographers has finally determined the meaning of the mysterious Trump tweet
term “covfefe.” It is Russian code for “They’re on to us!”